


you wanna make a memory?

by Roadkill2580



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Bucky Barnes does not have a psychology degree, Dissociative Identity Disorder, F/M, Mild Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Recovery, Rehabilitation, Unbeta'ed, and neither does the author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 20:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2082438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadkill2580/pseuds/Roadkill2580
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They tell him she's lost her memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you wanna make a memory?

 

 

They tell him that she’s lost her memory.

He thinks the implication there is that she’s unstable and he ought to avoid her. Barnes (James? Bucky? He still isn’t sure who he is) watches her wander around the Tower with a vulnerable expression her face. Her case is different than his. She lost hers in an accident, protecting a scientist named Foster. HYDRA asshats deliberately took his memory from him.

He doesn’t know how to feel knowing that there is someone else like him. He’s glad she didn’t have to experience The Chair. He’s glad that there’s someone who can relate. He’s angry that someone has those same issues. No one should have them. He wonders what it’s like for her, if it feels the same his does. It’s like there are layers, or maybe a deep murky pool. The scum on top of the pool is the Soldier, training and endurance and _the mission_ _objective._ Sometimes things float to the surface or he can reach deep enough and flashes of Bucky come through.

But as far as Barnes knows, she was never an Asset. There is no Soldier training to rely on, to guide her. She was only Darcy Lewis, civilian. Is Darcy still there at all? Or is there someone new and blank? What if Darcy comes back and there are _two_ of her in there, like there is two of him? How will she (they?) decide which one she wants to be?

He does know that no amount of hovering from the rest of the team will help her recover her memory. It will only make her feel guilty (someday Barnes will figure out how to tell Steve that he doesn’t think the Bucky he knew will ever come back. Even if he does get all his memory back, the Soldier is here to stay). There is no use in telling her about Darcy. Darcy might not come back. But it is important to find out what she’s like _now_.

A plan begins to formulate.

-

He is waiting in the kitchen for her when she comes in for breakfast. Her expression becomes a mixture of exhaustion and frustration upon spotting him.

“Were you a friend of mine too? I can’t remember anything, asking or telling me isn’t going to work, so buzz off.”

“We haven’t met. I don’t think. I can’t remember,” he tells her honestly. “My memory is gone too. It sucks. I thought we could be amnesiacs together.”

Her face twists into something he can’t interpret with his limited experience with social interaction, but it soon relaxes into what he identifies as relief. “Yeah? What should I call you?”

As he thought, she is not reticent when it comes to social activities, only when they include people who knew her and are trying too hard to force her to reclaim her memory. They should realize that Darcy just might not be there anymore. “Barnes. What do you prefer?”

“They, Jane and the other scientists, they tell me my name is Darcy.”

“But what do you want to be called?” he pushes. Before doesn’t matter anymore. Only now does.

Tears well in her eyes and a wobbly smile stretches her lips. It is the first time someone has asked her what she wants to be called. “Lewis sounds awesome.”

“Lewis. Let’s find out what you like to have for breakfast. Don’t worry about wasting food; my appetite is more than big enough to eat the left overs.”

-

Lewis likes sugary cereal and sweet coffees. They disagree over which is better, caramel or mocha, but they both agree that straight black coffee is to be avoided at all costs. She likes her eggs scrambled and soft yolks make her nauseous. She prefers sausage links over patties and likes to drizzle a little bit of syrup over her bacon. Waffles are better than pancakes, unless the pancakes have chocolate chips in them or there is a fruit flavored syrup on hand.

Barnes goes lighter on syrup than she does and prefers a hearty breakfast over a sweet one in general but he certainly does not object to it. It’s nice to learn more stuff about himself but right now the plan is to get Lewis to discover herself, not just rely on whatever people have told her about Darcy.

The self-recovery mission doesn’t end there.

Neither of them is cleared to leave the Tower without an escort that is in full possession of their memory, but that doesn’t stop them from taking Stark’s money card (courtesy of Lewis’s sneaking and conning skills) and using it to order all manner of food. He proves to be the least picky of the two but she makes a good showing, with a strong preference for food that is either greasy or full of sugar.

Of course, there are other things to learn about oneself than food. They browse the internet for clothes (Lewis teaches him how to navigate the internet and its hugely differing social etiquette. She doesn’t have Darcy’s memory, but she does have the protocols Darcy learned). Lewis helps him pick out clothes that aren’t Steve’s spares and Barnes finds himself dressed in soft hoodies and long sleeved henleys. He doesn’t like to expose his prosthetic arm unless he’s in combat.

Clothes turn into investigating movies and television shows, which turns into the pop culture at large. Barnes wrinkles his nose at modern dancing. Him and Bucky both would rather swing dance. At Lewis’s insistence, he teaches her. She proves to be stupidly good at it. The red head named Natasha catches them at it one day but she says nothing, just smiles enigmatically and leaves before Lewis notices she’s there.

Steve confronts him one day about the time he is spending with Lewis. Barnes feels bad, because he actually does like Steve, outside Bucky’s foggy memories. Steve is ridiculously nice and good, but he’s also something of an asshole who likes to give his team shit. Barnes’s favorite thing is when Steve convinces the team (especially Stark) that he really has no clue how to operate technology at all and they all struggle to show him how.

“So you’ve been hanging out with Darcy a lot lately,” Steve tries (and fails) to say casually. Barnes manages to shrug while completing his round of push-ups. They let him look down at his right hand where Lewis had been testing various nail polishes on him. Barnes wasn’t a fan of the way they looked, not really, but Lewis’s grin when she finally settled on her favorite color (a faintly shimmery emerald green) had been worth it.

“Her name isn’t Darcy,” Barnes informs Steve. He isn’t looking at the super soldier but he somehow knows that his brow is furrowing and he is frowning at Barnes’s back.

“What do you mean? Of course it is.”

Barnes resists the urge to growl. “She likes to be called Lewis. So that’s her name. Not Darcy.” There is a beat of silence.

“Okay. So you like Lewis.” Man, this guy is terrible at probing for information. Barnes takes pity on him anyway. His willingness to acknowledge Lewis’s preference for her name is a point in his favor. Nicest guy ever.

“She’s funny. And smart. And she gets what it’s like. Not having a memory.”

Barnes gets up to leave. He has to get cleaned up before he meets with Lewis. Tonight they were going to read a book series called Harry Potter together. As he leaves he calls out behind him.

“She’s pretty too.”

-

The pool in Barnes’s head clears, but it only lets the Soldier permeate Bucky even more. They mix until he can’t hardly tell one from the other. Somehow his brain is mixing oil and water. Or maybe they were never that different in the first place. Whichever the case, one morning Barnes wakes up and finds he wants to be called Bucky. By his friends at least, which right now only include Steve and Lewis, though he suspects it won’t be long before he allows flying Sam and Natasha that privilege as well.

Bucky thinks about Lewis a lot. It makes sense, he spends nearly all of his time with her. Helping her learn about herself has become less of a mission to help her discover who she is now and more of him discovering who she is for himself. He likes the way her dark brown hair tumbles down around her shoulders. He likes her curvy body and the way it makes heat pool in his gut. He likes the silly games they play with each other, like Lewis trying to find out how many magnets she can attach to his metal arm before he retaliates or how close she can sneak up to him before he notices (she won’t be able to as long as she wears that distracting perfume).

So it’s understandable that he is confused and maybe a little hurt when one day she’s not in any of the common areas. He was hoping to take her for another round of swing dancing, had a new playlist made and everything. He’s in the mood to spend some energy but he isn’t interested in exercising or beating up a punching bag. But she isn’t around.

She isn’t around for the next week and it doesn’t take Bucky long to realize that its him she’s avoiding. He doesn’t know if he’s done something wrong and he doesn’t have the patience to sit around to find out. He doesn’t know what the Bucky of the 1940s would have done, but the post Winter Soldier Bucky decides to confront the issue directly.

He rings the chime to Lewis’s apartments. His enhanced hearing picks up shuffling inside before she opens the door. She looks terrible. She has been crying and her face is pale with bright red splotches. Bucky still finds her adorable.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says without preamble. Her face crumples. He wants to comfort her so he awkwardly reaches out and pats her shoulder. She digs the heel of her palm into one of her eyes to stem the flow of tears.

“I miss you,” she says but she doesn’t explain her actions. He waits patiently. His silence eventually prompts her to continue. “I got my memories back. I’m not Lewis. I’m Darcy. Lewis is Darcy.”

Bucky frowns at her. “What do you mean?”

Lewis (Darcy?) sniffles. “Everything Lewis liked, Darcy likes. Lewis’s personality is Darcy’s. Lewis was Darcy, just without,” she gestures to head lamely, “any memories.”

Bucky tries to process that. He thought Lewis was like him, caught in a struggle between someone new and the person before her. But there was only ever one person in there and that person was Darcy. But something about her words make him pause.

“You remember being Lewis,” he says. She nods. “You remember me,” he clarifies. She nods again. He notices tears clinging to her wet lashes.

“So if Lewis is Darcy, and Darcy remembers what Lewis remembers, there is just Darcy,” he pauses. His mind tries to find one of the smooth lines that Bucky From Before would have used on a pretty dame, but even in his head the words sound clumsy. He might want to be called Bucky, but he is not Bucky From Before. He is Bucky And The Soldier.

“Does Darcy want to go dancing with Bucky?” he asks. There’s a moment where she takes time to process his words before a bright, wet grin spreads across her face.

“Yes, Darcy would like to go dancing with Bucky.”

**Author's Note:**

> Darcy has retrograde amnesia. According to wikipedia, quite often the patient retains their personality despite missing their memories. Therefore, the habits and personality that "Lewis" presents are actually Darcy's. Bucky is under the belief that Darcy's amnesia is the same as his and that Darcy has two (or more) different people in her head. What he doesn't know that while he also has amnesia, he also has dissociative identity disorder, which Darcy does not have, so there are not multiple personalities her brain. 
> 
> As far as recovery from amnesia goes, the "reminder treatment" is not usually helpful in memory recovery. While sometimes memories do return due to context, it is far more common that they come back either in the form of dreams or spontaneous recovery, which is how Darcy's come back.
> 
> Edit: Mega thank you to my good friend Camy for creating the graphic for this fic. *smooches*


End file.
